


See the Sun

by sister_wolf



Category: DCU (Comics), Teen Titans (Comics)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-10-12
Updated: 2005-10-12
Packaged: 2017-10-12 05:46:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/121454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sister_wolf/pseuds/sister_wolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bart and Roy take a moment to talk about the past, the future, and their teams. (Or: the one where Bart and Roy steal Vic's beer and bond on the roof of Titans Tower.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	See the Sun

**Author's Note:**

> Set in that nebulous time period after (and contains spoilers for) Teen Titans 25 & Outsiders 25.

He'd heard the sound of skateboard wheels rolling over curved cement as soon as he stepped off the elevator. Roy slipped his sunglasses on, sauntering across the roof of the new Titans Tower toward the half-pipe that Bart had apparently built one morning when he was bored. Speedsters.

"Hey, Bart," Roy said, coming to a stop next to the ramp. Bart ignored him and kept skating, but that was okay. Roy had time to wait.

He sat down on the cement of the roof and stretched his legs out in front of him, leaning back on his arms and basking in the sun. After all the bullshit that had gone down in the last few weeks-- Deathstroke playing him for a fool, Indigo turning out to be a sleeper agent, Dick quitting the team-- it was nice to be able to just sit and chill out for a while.

"So how'd _you_ get stuck with me?" Bart asked, suddenly standing next to him holding a can of soda with condensation dripping down the sides.

"The Justice League," Roy said, chosing his words carefully, "asked if people could talk to you guys about what happened with Superboy, just to make sure that you're all okay." The actual discussion had been a lot less calm than that sounded-- Batman and Superman had tried to intimidate Vic and Gar into letting members of the Justice League interview the kids. Vic and Gar, of course, had adamantly refused, saying that it was the Titans' responsibility to make sure the kids were okay. They'd finally reached a compromise: former Titans members who actually had a connection to the kids would talk to them, one on one.

"We're fine. There, now you can tell the Justice League that you checked," Bart said matter-of-factly. He chugged the soda in under two seconds, which would have been a little disturbing if Roy hadn't spent most of his teenage years hanging out with Wally, the Human Vacuum.

"C'mon, I gotta at least spend enough time up here to make it look good." Roy tilted his head back, trying to look pitiful. "Bring me a beer?" It was an unusually warm day for San Francisco in the spring, and though his costume both looked good and protected his ass (his fine, fine ass, he'd been told many times, by both sexes _and_ a handful of alien species), he was beginning to feel steam-cooked in the hot sun.

Bart rolled his eyes. "Like there's any beer in the _Teen_ Titans Tower."

"There's gotta be. Vic's here," Roy pointed out. "Look in the mini-fridge in his lab."

"Okay," Bart shrugged. "But it's on you if Vic decides to kick my ass for stealing his beer."

Bart was back by the time that Roy finished taking off his jacket, holding a fresh can of Zesti Soda (the grape flavor, Roy noticed with a wince of disgust) in one hand and a beer in the other. "Bud? Man, I can't believe he's still drinking that crap." Still, a beer was a beer. Roy shrugged philosophically and uncapped the bottle, taking a long swig.

"You didn't answer my question. Why'd they send _you_?" Bart sat hunched over defensively, picking at a fraying thread at the hem of his jeans.

"I guess they figured we had a rapport or something. I _was_ your team leader, after all, your first time on the Titans."

Bart squinted at him dubiously. "Yeah, for like two _weeks_."

"Three months," Roy protested mildly.

"Whatever." Bart braced his crossed arms on his drawn-up knees, staring out over the bay. Roy had to admit, it was a hell of a view. Maybe the Outsiders' next headquarters could be in a high-rise. If there even _was_ an Outsiders anymore. He guessed that he'd find out when he went back to New York. He just had to keep reminding himself that it wasn't up to him, and that really, that was a _good_ thing.

"So why's it bugging you that it's me? I mean, unless you've decided that I suck or something. Which, y'know, there's more than a few people who'd agree with you on that one, so--" Roy shrugged. And at least four of them were on his own team. There'd be five, except that Dick _quit_.

"Nah, I just--" Bart chewed on his lower lip absently. "I guess I kind of thought they'd send Wally."

"Ahhh." Tipping the bottle back and forth, Roy pondered the fact that Budweiser looked even more like piss in bright daylight. "They were thinking about it, but Wally's got his hands full in Keystone right now with the Rogues. And besides, I volunteered to talk to you."

"Why?" Bart asked with a full helping of teenaged scorn.

"Because you were part of my team, and believe it or not that does mean something to me. And... because I know something about not having a good relationship with your mentor." Hell, he could write a fucking book on it. The secret life of superheroes-- sex, drugs, and emotional dysfunction. It'd be a best-seller.

Bart sighed, resting his chin on his crossed arms. "At least your mentor _liked_ you."

"Don't be so sure about that." At Bart's doubtful look, he said, "Listen, Ollie's mellowed out a _lot_ since the whole dying-and-coming-back-to-life thing. Back when he was younger-- well. Having a sidekick could be nice, sometimes, but mostly I just cramped Ollie's style."

"That sucks."

"Yeah." But Bart really didn't need to know all of the various ways in which it had sucked. Maybe when he was older, Roy could regale him with the tales of How I Fucked Up (Again and Again) at Being a Son, a Sidekick, and a Teammate. Or not. "So are you?"

"What? Okay?" Bart fidgeted. "I guess. Mostly I'm just worried about what they're going to do to Kon."

"Nothing too bad, I think. Batman's a little paranoid over the whole thing-- no surprise-- but Superman went to bat for him."

"Good. It wasn't Kon's fault. He just-- he got mind-controlled. It could happen to anyone. Hell, it happened to _Gar_ , and none of us are looking at him like he might flip out at any minute. 'Course, that was Raven's fault anyway..." Bart paused, and then continued in a very quiet voice, "Sometimes it freaks me out, when I look at her, and I remember."

Roy sighed, putting his beer down. "Yeah. I know what you mean." And Raven was supposedly different now, sane and not evil anymore, but every so often Roy would look at her and remember how things went down at Dick and Kory's abortive wedding. Roy suppressed a shudder and tried not to think about it anymore.

"And I don't want-- I don't want people thinking that Kon's evil just 'cause his other dad is L-- err--" Bart cut himself off quickly, staring at Roy with wide golden eyes. For a second, he looked just like the hyperactive, immature toddler-in-a-teenager's-body he'd been when he was on Roy's team, driving him batshit crazy. Roy quirked a smile. Ah, those were the days.

"S'okay, man, I was there. I know about Luthor being his other daddy." He paused. "You know, if you think about it the wrong way, that means that Kon is Superman and Lex Luthor's half-alien lovechild." He grinned and took another swig of beer while Bart was still squawking indignantly.

Bart took off running around the perimeter of the roof, getting in at least half a dozen laps before flopping down next to Roy again. Poking Roy with one foot, he demanded, "Dude, don't _ever_ say that again."

"What, alien lovechild?"

"You _suck_." Bart stuck his tongue out. "Anyway, he's not an alien lovechild; he's probably the result of somatic cell nuclear transfer and DNA recombination, using the Beckett model. Though of course the extraterrestrial origin of half his DNA would complicate matters."

Roy stared at him. Bart grabbed a chewed-on pen out of his jeans pocket and started drawing on his sneakers, not paying any attention to him. Shaking his head, Roy smiled to himself. And Wally thought this kid was _dumb_. Not hardly.

The breeze picked up, carrying the salt smell of the ocean and the faint sound of gulls calling in the distance. Roy tipped his face up, drinking in the sunlight. Maybe what he really needed was a vacation. Take the convertible, just him and Lian, roadtripping across the country. No supervillains, no saving the world, no stress.

Yeah, a father-daughter vacation, just the two of them, while Lian was still young enough to want to spend time with her old man. That sounded perfect. But he could just see it now-- he'd go, and then he'd find out that the Outsiders got their asses kicked by someone because he wasn't around to watch their backs. And he'd pretty much never forgive himself if one of his teammates got hurt because he wasn't there. The Outsiders might not be much of a team-- particularly not now-- but they were _his_ team.

"Anyway, I really am okay," Bart said quietly, drawing little stars on the white rubber edging of his hightops. "Mostly, I'm worried about everyone else. Tim's arm is really screwed up, and they think he'll get back full mobility, but it'll probably take a while. Cassie's upset, but she won't talk about it, just gets angry and breaks things. Mia doesn't know what the hell's going on, and I feel bad for her 'cause I know how hard it is to be on a new team that's already beginning to fall apart." He darted a quick glance at Roy. "No offense."

"None taken."

"And they always talk about how if you're a Teen Titan you're a Titan forever, but... we were Young Justice first. It was just us-- Tim, Kon, Cassie, Cissie, Secret, and me-- from the very beginning." Bart started tapping the ball-point pen against the cement, the movement rapidly becoming blurry and then too fast for the human eye to see at all. Roy kept a weather eye on it, expecting that it would explode and shower ink all over them any minute now. "And it feels like we're losing that. Slobo died, and nobody even knows _where_ Empress is anymore. We hardly ever get to see Cissie and Secret. And now-- who knows when Kon will come back. Cassie's so angry all the time, and Tim's withdrawing more and more ever since his dad and his girlfriend died. It feels like it's all falling apart, and I don't know how to fix anything."

And this was the part where he was supposed to offer wise advice or something. Roy grimaced. How the hell could he tell this kid how to fix his team, when he couldn't even keep the Outsiders from cracking at the seams every couple of weeks?

"Listen," he said, "Sometimes shit happens. Sometimes teams fall apart. You wanna know how many different versions of the Teen Titans I've been on over the years? Well, tough, because quite honestly I've lost count." Actually, that was a lie. He remembered every single one. "But things change. People change, and they move on." Roy paused to gather his thoughts.

"And friendships change, but the kind that you have with Kon and Tim, and Cassie, and even Mia if you give her a chance... they never go away. Not completely. You're always going to be teammates, even after you move on to other things, even if one of you-- dies--" Roy hid the sudden roughness of his voice with a long pull at his beer. _Donna_.

"That's what they mean when they say you'll always be a Titan. And you guys, you'll always be Young Justice, too. No matter what."

Bart nodded thoughtfully. Roy smiled to himself-- hell, talking to the kids wasn't so hard. Maybe if the Outsiders went belly-up, he could convince Vic and Gar to let him help run the Teen Titans. He was pretty good at this mentoring stuff.

After a while, Bart slanted a look at him and asked, "So, you totally learned your mentoring technique from afterschool specials, didn't you?"

"Brat." Roy swiped at Bart's hair, missing completely as the kid seemed to disappear and then reappear on the other side of him, grinning. Damn speedsters.

"So is this the special about underage drinking or unprotected sex? 'Cause I need to know whether I should get more beer, or condoms." Bart held a serious expression for about half a second before starting to laugh with a sound like a rusty buzzsaw, speeding up and slowing down unpredictably.

Roy tried to look offended, but gave up and just went with it, laughing until his belly ached even though he wasn't quite sure _why_ it was so damn funny. After the hell of the last few weeks, it really didn't matter why they were laughing, it just felt good to do it.

Eventually, their laughter died down into occasional chuckles, both of them lying on the roof and grinning up at the pale California sky. Roy rolled his head to the side, meeting Bart's inquisitive golden eyes with the most reassuring look he could muster. "Hey. It'll be okay. I promise. You're a good team, and you'll get through this."

"Yeah." Bart smiled, and it was almost his old Impulse smile, sunny and guilelessly sweet. "You will, too."


End file.
